A Message of Hope
In the middle of one of his visions, John watches Jesus come down from heaven with a little book in His hand. John is then ordered to eat the book. In his excitement, its ideas and stories were delicious. But when it got down to his belly, he got a bellyache.
You have had that experience too, probably. I have. I was an excited little boy. My grandparents were visiting, and we were going to have my favorite food for supper, fruit salad. Eagerly I ate my first bowl, and then my second and third. Every bite was delicious. I listened to the stories around the table. I was happy. But my belly was not. It didn’t agree with my tongue. I delighted in eating fruit salad, but my belly refused to digest it. My dinner suddenly ended up on the living room floor.
In reality, John was asked to go through an experience that would be the prophecy of the Advent movement of the 1800s. That “little book” of Daniel that Jesus held in His hand predicted that He would stop all the suffering and injustice of the world and replace it with heaven. Recognizing these predictions would be fulfilled soon was sweet to the minds and “mouths” of our spiritual forefathers. But when the time came to live those ideas out in the development of character, the reality was so bitter to their stomachs it gave them a stomachache.
To be intensely excited and then disappointed once was hard enough. Twice in the same year was almost unbearable. How could God disappoint them twice? How could they be right and yet wrong? What was going on? The believers in God and His word were confused and frustrated. For so long, the world around them had told them they were wrong. But that world never found something better it could agree on. The believers knew that the world’s disagreement for the sake of disagreeing was not proof of any error. But now, after the first disappointment and then the great disappointment of 1844, they didn’t know what to say.
The advice given John for his upset stomach was hard for these few. You “must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings” (Revelation 10:11).
Twice they had already prophesied that Jesus was coming, that it was time to be ready to live with Him, that it was time to nurture the “better angels” of our natures and conquer our inner “devils.” Both times their prophecies proved incorrect. What could they prophesy now? Who would believe them again? What could they say that would be so credible that even kings would listen to them? Their soul-searching was intense. Who were they? What was their mission and purpose? Why did they exist? What should they do now?
God must have the answers. He had led them before. They knew it was His leading, for only He could bring the unity and good will, the happiness and holiness that were part of their past. And God’s guidance would once again have to come from a combination of understanding the Bible, and understanding the circumstances and impressions that came to them in light of the Bible.
No one person answered the deep questions of the believers of that time. Many of them searched deeply the Bible and their own hearts and experiences. Groups of them came together and studied the truths of the Bible and the circumstances of their times. Out of those groups, answers came, until once again there was unity and joy.
They were to present once again the second coming of Jesus, but this time in a new perspective. In their excitement previous to the two disappointments, they were focused on harmony with God. “We carefully examined every thought and emotion of our hearts, as if upon our deathbeds.” “Every morning we felt that it was our first work to secure the evidence that our lives were right before God. Our interest for one another increased; we prayed much with and for one another.” “The joys of salvation were more necessary to us than our food and drink. If clouds obscured our minds, we dared not rest or sleep till they were swept away by the consciousness of our acceptance with the Lord.”1 These believers told the world of Jesus’ coming and asked them to seek forgiveness from God for where they wronged Him, themselves, and others.
But repentance and forgiveness were not all. God asked for something more. He wanted character. “If the message had been of as short duration as many of us supposed, there would have been no time for [God’s people] to develop character. Many moved from feeling, not from principle and faith, and this solemn, fearful message stirred them. It wrought upon their feelings, and excited their fears, but did not accomplish the work which God designed that it should. God reads the heart. Lest His people should be deceived in regard to themselves, He gives them time for the excitement to wear off, and then proves them to see if they will obey the counsel of the True Witness.”2
God not only wants us to ask Him to forgive us. He wants us to live a full and satisfying life while depending on Him. He wants us to develop habits of industry, humility, nobility, reasonability, dependability. “Higher than the highest human thought can reach is God’s ideal for His children. Godliness—godlikeness—is the goal to be reached. Before [us] there is opened a path of continual progress. [We have] an object to achieve, a standard to attain, that includes everything good, and pure, and noble. [We] will advance as fast and as far as possible in every branch of true knowledge. But [our] efforts will be directed to objects as much higher than mere selfish and temporal interests as the heavens are higher than the earth.” “All [humankind’s] faculties [are] capable of development; their capacity and vigor [are] continually to increase.”3
Let us use an example. One of the first great areas of reform or change brought to the attention of these Advent people was their health. For, no matter how much they loved God and were careful to examine their motives and thoughts, they were sick. So were many of their neighbors. In 1840, most of the U.S. population was young. Adults were the minority. with more than half the population under twenty and less than one in three of the population between the ages of twenty and forty. Those over forty made up fifteen percent of the population.4 Between 1830 and 1840, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated from Europe to the United States. Many of these immigrants were young. That explains part of why the U.S. population was so young in 1840. Sickness explains the rest.
Nearly every home had someone seriously ill in it.5 John Andrews would later explain that he grew up believing that headache, nausea, dyspepsia, and fevers were acts of nature as freak and uncontrollable as tornadoes and hurricanes.6 Millions of Americans thought the same way.
The most common causes of death in 1840 are hard to discern. Historical records are not always complete or accurate in this matter. But the general reality is clear. Tuberculosis, whooping cough, pneumonia, and typhoid fever caused roughly half of all deaths. The treatments were even scarier than the diseases, with leaches used for bleeding and mercury and arsenic being prescribed as treatments. Sick people were imprisoned in rooms with no light and little air. They were given bread and water. The treatment made people sick as much as the disease did.
The Adventists were sick also. They suffered from the same health problems as the general public. And they were using the same remedies with the addition of prayer.
God asked Adventists to take responsibility for their own health. He invited them to improve their health and to look to Him for healing. He required them to learn how their bodies worked at least at a simple level. “Since the mind and the soul find expression through the body, both mental and spiritual vigor are in great degree dependent upon physical strength and activity; whatever promotes physical health, promotes the development of a strong mind and a well-balanced character. Without health no one can as distinctly understand or as completely fulfill his obligations to himself, to his fellow beings, or to his Creator. Therefore the health should be as faithfully guarded as the character. A knowledge of physiology and hygiene should be the basis of all educational effort.”7
God asked them to look to Him to heal their bodies as well as their minds and characters. This means the same need for prayer and heart searching as before the great disappointment. In addition it means lifestyle changes. “It is labor lost to teach people to look to God as a healer of their infirmities, unless they are taught also to lay aside unhealthful practices. In order to receive His blessing in answer to prayer, they must cease to do evil and learn to do well. Their surroundings must be sanitary, their habits of life correct. They must live in harmony with the law of God, both natural and spiritual.” “To those who desire prayer for their restoration to health, it should be made plain that the violation of God’s law, either natural or spiritual, is sin, and that in order for them to receive His blessing, sin must be confessed and forsaken.”8
Remedies were encouraged so long as they assisted the body in its own healing processes. This meant careful attention to sunshine and fresh air, water and diet. The environment surrounding the sick one was to be made to be as beneficial as possible for healing. Medicinal substances were to be used as long as their effect was to help the body.
The greatest attention was also to be paid to the mind. “The condition of the mind affects the health to a far greater degree than many realize. Many of the diseases from which men suffer are the result of mental depression. Grief, anxiety, discontent, remorse, guilt, distrust, all tend to break down the life forces and to invite decay and death.”
“Courage, hope, faith, sympathy, love, promote health and prolong life. A contented mind, a cheerful spirit, is health to the body and strength to the soul. . . . In the treatment of the sick the effect of mental influence should not be overlooked. Rightly used, this influence affords one of the most effective agencies for combating disease.”9
While acknowledging some disease has supernatural origins, such as Job’s boils, most diseases can be prevented and healed. “God is just as willing to restore the sick to health now as when the Holy Spirit spoke these words through the psalmist [referring to Psalms 103:13, 14; 107:17, 18, ARV; 19, 20, RV]. And Christ is the same compassionate physician now that He was during His earthly ministry. In Him there is healing balm for every disease, restoring power for every infirmity.”10
And the spiritual part of humanity is important to the health of everyone. “The heaviest burden that we bear is the burden of sin. If we were left to bear this burden, it would crush us. But the Sinless One has taken our place.”11
Jesus wanted to come and take people home. He wanted to end injustice and suffering. He wanted to turn the page of human history and end all sin. But He asked us to become men and women of well-developed bodies and minds and characters first. He wants people to have healthy, mature, developed individualities, families, and communities as well as bodies and minds. He offers a superior way to educate, heal, and govern in order to help us who are helpless. He provides instruction in all of life, if we will listen.
This instruction in life and character came to help us prepare for heaven. It also came at the same time as the world around Adventism was rethinking itself. Medicine was completely reformed. Out went the use of mercury and opium. Gone were the leeches and bloodletting. In came anatomy, physiology, and a new pharmacology. Many of the new medicines were plant based and thoroughly tested before being used. Diagnostic procedures changed. Hygienic practices improved.
Our mental health and personalities changed. So did our families and communities. Modern civilization completely changed its educational methods and governing systems. At the same time Adventism was completely changing, so was the world. And the changes in the world and in Adventism were in the same areas of human activity. The world put a great deal of work and thought into creating its civilization. Adventists also put a great deal of work and thought into their alternative solutions to the great problems of humanity. Adventism was influenced by the world around it. Sometimes, especially in the field of health, it influenced the world around it also. Adventism reached different solutions to the great human problems, such as “How do I get well?” There are three primary reasons why Adventism reached different conclusions.
First, they believed God should be consulted in the solution of life’s problems. They used the same methods of searching the Bible systematically and thoroughly. They examined passages that seemed helpful to the subject while careful considering their context. They believed that the God who answered one way in the past would answer consistently again in the present.
Second, they believed in submitting all human wisdom to God. While actively engaged in research and thought, they were willing to surrender their perceptions, preoccupations, and pursuits when it became clear that God contradicted them.
Third, they were blessed with extra help from God in the work of Ellen White. Unassuming and hardworking, Ellen wrote thousands of pages of material that offer guidance in life. Working against the hardships of little education and no wealth, she tirelessly supported and encouraged the reformatory and evangelistic work of the Advent people during some seven decades of ministry. Though sometimes accused in her day and ours of an evil character, her humility, decency, hard work, spirituality, and determination demonstrated her accusers to be uttering falsehoods. Her work confirmed the doctrines of the movement, but she was not its source of doctrine. The doctrines of the movement can be found with the use of the Bible alone and have been believed by others outside of the movement. Others within the movement discovered and introduced every doctrine of the movement except the subject of the Godhead. She did not control the church or its individual members, even though she was very influential. Her prophetic work harmonizes consistently with the Bible.
The men and women that began and founded the work of the third angel were generally very similar: poor, uneducated, hard-working, dedicated. Ellen’s husband, James White, would produce some of the best biblical scholarship to be found in his time. He did this after only a few months of education. (His poor eyesight as a child prevented him from attending school for most of the grades available.) John Loughborough, John Andrews, Uriah Smith, all had more education but came from poor, hardworking backgrounds. So did the Kellogg brothers, and Farnsworth families, and George Amadon, and John Byington, and Hiram Edson, and Stephen Haskell. Joseph Bates, twice as old as many of his colleagues, was an experienced businessman as a sea captain. But his education was more practical than scholastic.
In those years when these men and women were forming a new spiritual body, they were guided by God and by experience. In those Sabbath Bible Conferences as they studied together and united on “present truth,” they discovered the realities of 1844. They learned that, while the believers before the great disappointment thought that the twenty-three-hundred-days of Daniel 8 referred to Jesus’ coming, those believers misunderstood the Bible. For nowhere does the Bible refer to the earth as God’s sanctuary. The Advent idea that the earth would be cleaned up by fire as the cleansing of the sanctuary was their own supposition. It was, in fact, the sanctuary God maintains in heaven that would be cleaned. It would be cleaned in two ways.
First, the forgiveness given to sinners throughout human history would be confirmed. All that forgiveness would be examined. If the sins were never sorrowed over and forsaken, they would not have their forgiveness ratified. Instead, those sins would return on the head of the person incorrectly claiming forgiveness. Then, all humans still attached to sin would be condemned to the final bonfire, to be entirely extinguished. Second, those who are alive in the present would find a better way to live and overcome every temptation to pride and exaggerated passion. Finally, all the corrected record of forgiven sins, stored for centuries in heaven, would be placed on the great originator of sin. He would be condemned to suffer for the guilt of the sins he caused the repentant ones to commit.
The method to all lifestyle changes is the same one we find when we give ourselves to God the first time: surrender. We must look at God until we regret hurting Him and ourselves, our families and our communities. We must ask for forgiveness until He changes us from destructive to noble. The great key to lifestyle change is time management. And the capstone of time management is the weekly cycle of six working days and the seventh day of every week for reflection, study, and spiritual socialization. It was the discovery of this Rest or Sabbath that Adventism found early on to be unique and uniquely beneficial. God Himself called it a symbol, when properly lived out, of His happiness with us and our submission to Him. As a seal of our commitment to Him, it serves as part of the bond in the divine-human relationship.
And so, our forefathers learned that they were looking for too easy a preparation for eternity and heaven. They wanted Jesus to take them out of this world when they were still part of it as misfits for heaven. They wanted a quick moment of repentance, very genuine but not sufficiently thorough to be enough.
“God leads His people on, step by step. He brings them up to different points calculated to manifest what is in the heart. Some endure at one point but fall off at the next. At every advanced point the heart is tested and tried a little closer. If the professed people of God find their hearts opposed to this straight work, it should convince them that they have a work to do to overcome, if they would not be spewed out of the mouth of the Lord. Said the angel: ‘God will bring His work closer and closer to test and prove every one of His people.’ Some are willing to receive one point; but when God brings them to another testing point, they shrink from it and stand back, because they find that it strikes directly at some cherished idol. Here they have opportunity to see what is in their hearts that shuts out Jesus. They prize something higher than the truth, and their hearts are not prepared to receive Jesus. Individuals are tested and proved a length of time to see if they will sacrifice their idols and heed the counsel of the True Witness. If any will not be purified through obeying the truth, and overcome their selfishness, their pride, and evil passions, the angels of God have the charge: ‘They are joined to their idols, let them alone,’ and they pass on to their work, leaving these with their sinful traits unsubdued, to the control of evil angels. Those who come up to every point, and stand every test, and overcome, be the price what it may, have heeded the counsel of the True Witness, and they will receive the latter rain, and thus be fitted for translation.”12
For more than a century and a half, the Seventh Day Adventist people have sought to prepare themselves and to advocate in our world for a character worthy of heaven. At first they used small meetings. Then they started conducting great conferences. Renting or bringing a giant tent (before there were stadiums available) they would invite people from miles around to come and hear the subjects of Adventist concern. Thousands of people would camp around the big tent. Many joined the group of Seventh Day Adventists.
Later, the churches became organized in little prayer groups. A few believers would meet in the homes of one of the members to pray for the children and neighbors and friends of everyone in the group. Not believing talking to God to be enough, they would then help each other in talking with and helping their children, neighbors, and friends. If someone did not have many people to pray for, they would find articles in the newspaper that were interesting and start writing to the author. (We could do the same with internet bloggers and TV and radio personalities today.) When they did not know what to say, they gave one of many tracts the Adventists had available. (Adventists saw themselves as public educators and prepared tracts and publications on many subjects for the general public.) Then they would follow up and see what the person thought of the tract and whether they understood it. These prayer groups with their work soon brought in as many new people as the evangelists with their big tents. Besides these, Adventist sanitariums and schools reached many who did not know about Adventism. And Adventists were active in foreign missions. Through these means, Adventism has served the world around us, following in the footsteps of the great master Teacher.
We wish the Advent people had always followed Him. Like the rest of humanity, Adventists are far from infallible. Asked to fill the shoes of those “who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus,” we have often fallen short. Offered the chance to build educational and medical systems directly guided by God, we have turned many times to our own ways. Offered help for our families, our communities, our personalities, our health, our wealth, and our time, we have often turned God down because we are wiser than Him in our own eyes. And so we have not yet provided the clear and convincing alternative to the solutions of our contemporary civilization that God has provided for us.
Fittingly, God speaks to us in our self-sufficiency and blindness. You think you are rich, well dressed, and have excellent eyesight. But you are really poor, naked, and blind. Buy wealth, clothes, and eyesight from Me.
So often we argue with God in the deep recesses of our minds. We tell God He really doesn’t know what we need. We tell Him that He is just annoying us, and we don’t care about Him. We essentially say that we do not want His wisdom for our choices. The Bible speaks of Him as outside of our lives, asking to come in. “I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in.” “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 3:20; 22:20).